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A Decade Together

We marked our decade-long marriage together this past Friday with some sparkle. My planning for the occasion began as early as February, when I sought to replace the engagement ring that Melody had lost a few years back. After many covert trips to Roseville and downtown Sacramento to browse diamonds from various vendors – Shane Co., Bianca’s, Santillan, and Sharif’s, I ultimately chose a Blue Nile stone that nearly matched the original diamond’s specs, and worked with their custom department to recreate my design. Having failed to score a French Laundry reservation from our concierge service due to their change to a new ticket system, we instead booked Date Night at 3-Michelin-starred Benu in San Francisco, asking our in-laws to cover baby duty at home. Corey Lee’s Asian-style tasting menu provided a unique take on very familiar flavors as we smiled at each other over Melody’s new ring. We started with delicacies of 1000-year old quail egg, tuna marrow, oyster and pork belly foam, squid on a blood sausage, barbecued abalone with abalone liver, and “shark fin” crab egg custard before finally getting to the bread course featuring the Best Bread Ever. Then the real journey began: foie gras xiao long bao, seasonal caviar and uni, geoduck clam, fried eel with lip-numbing pepper leaf and szechuan peppercorns; a fat juicy barbecued quail with a steamed truffled bao, a lobster-stuffed sea cucumber, and a beef course featuring steak, a galbi-jim-styled riblet, and banchan. We cleared our palates with an omija sorbet before the chocolate acorn dessert and a pricey vintage pu-erh tea. But things weren’t over yet – a final anniversary cake was presented within a music box playing Love Me Tender, which we enjoyed with a sweet rice water drink. After another marble-hunting trek with some Korean food in Rancho Cordova on Saturday, we celebrated Mother’s Day over hot pot and another cheese trip for Melody. Recounting our journey over past 10 years, and with Westley now finally walking, we look forward to many more adventures ahead.